"What if I told you that the true culprit behind the 2007-2008 credit crisis and, indirectly, the current Euro crisis was a mathematical model known as Value at Risk? And what if I told you that VaR, present in the markets for more than two decades, had caused trouble before and that its obvious structural deficiencies were amply known?" In this guest post, the author writes about "The Number That Killed Us."

In this guest post the author writes, "We need to capture and share the best practices of top performers, and match those best practices with people best suited to use them. The catch is that you have to individualize."

Despite the normal gridlock that takes place between the two houses of Congress, this week the House and Senate agreed and passed legislation that will help spur economic growth and create jobs in America, without any additional taxpayer funding.

In his new book, “The Power of Storytelling: Captivate, Convince or Convert Any Business Audience Using Stories from Top CEOs" Jim Holtje shares the stories of those corporate legends who inspired their employees with their deeds and with their tales.

Selling for a small firm is harder than selling for a large one. Your customer may never have heard of your firm, there’s probably not much sales support, and you likely can’t spend big money to develop and close an account. Nevertheless, it’s not just possible, but downright easy, to outsell the big guys.

Although unemployment was steady at 8.3 percent in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development area, youth unemployment, at 17.2 percent, is high and likely to go higher, Stefano Scarpetta, deputy director for Employment, Labor and Social Affairs at the OECD, told CNBC.com.

Since the downturn in 2008, many Americans have been forced to rethink their careers. Some have gone back to school to learn new skills. A lot of that training is taking place online. Among the most popular careers: wedding planner and gunsmith.

Part One of “Marathon Lessons for the Corporate World” described the principles of effective marathon training and gave some examples of “novice runner” mistakes in business. Now, let’s explore how companies and employees can utilize marathon lessons to maximize workplace performance.

Divorced couples sometimes have to see each other at work. Some share ownership of a business but communicate only through lawyers and underlings. Others go on 300-day international stadium tours together.

The author writes, "In our business careers, we tend to think sweeping or wholesale changes are required to enable us to more deeply appreciate our lives or our jobs...Yet it’s often the fine adjustments between the smaller details of our lives that we neglect or do not revisit often enough that tend to make the headlines of our lives seem uncomfortable, not as harmonious as they could be, or just hard to read."

Aaron Shapiro author of "Users Not Customers: Who Really Determines the Success of Your Business", writes of Gap Inc.’s user-first web strategy and makes the case that, "a user-first strategy will become, if it isn’t already, a company’s make-it-or-break-it point of difference."